310 Parents: Skate Sharpening Primer for Goalie Parents

Speaking of primers and speaking of edges, today, I wanna give goalie parents a primer on their kids' edges, their skate edges. I think a lot of parents drop skates off at the shop and they give them some number that they've just heard or maybe they even just ask, just sharpen my kids' skates, please. Whatever you think. And I've had a few questions on this lately, so I thought I'd give you a little bit of a refresher. There are no easy answers, but maybe this would be helpful for parents and for some other people as well.

I'm gonna be honest, Woody. It's sad, But, even though I played to a small cup of coffee in university, I didn't know any of this stuff back when I was playing. I I think I sharpened my skates maybe once a year, sometimes twice. So maybe you'll forgive me for not learning much about what was at that point maybe a relatively ignored part of the game. We wanted to be able to shuffle around really easily but hard pushes and athletic edge control were not a thing for most of us because I'm that old.

But I've learned a lot since so here it goes. Your skates, a lot of parents don't even know this, have two edges. It's not like a knife. There's an inside edge on your skate, and there's an outside edge on your skate. Most goalies spend the vast majority of their time on the inside edge.

But Woody, quiz later, when do goalies need to use their outside edge? You got about five minutes to think about that. So two edges because we have a rounded stone that is run down the middle of your three or four millimeter blade when it's being sharpened. It essentially hollows the center of the blade out, thus giving us those two edges. The stone itself is convex.

It's rounded up like a bump and the blade then becomes sharpened in a concave way with the depression in the middle. It's like going into a cave. Concave. Get it, Woody? Okay.

Nice. You didn't forget

the dad jokes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's it's how I learned it actually. Everybody who is listening to this and not driving their car might want to pause this for a second and go grab a skate.

Okay. Whether you have a skate or not or you're just imagining one in your mind's eye, hold it up, look down the length of the blade, and I hope you'll be able to see the two edges on either side and then that concave, depression in the middle. That's what we're talking about here. Now, how rounded that stone that does the sharpening is determines how deep that concave rut in the middle is, and that's what determines how sharp your edges are. So where do the numbers you hear at the skate shop come from?

Half inch, three quarters, seven sixteenths. Without getting too too technically technical, that is the radius of the curvature of that stone. It's hard to put it into words in a podcast, so we'll include an illustration with the write up. But here's the key information. A bigger number means that stone is curved to a bigger circle.

The bigger that circle is, the wider that circle is, the less it's gonna carve a groove into the blade so you get less sharp skates. So big number, less sharp. Small number, sharper.

Hold on. What? You can still have they're still sharp.

That's why I said less sharp. They're still sharp.

I'm gonna have to think about I didn't say dull. Think about that one too.

Big bigger bigger number on that stone makes that that arc a little bit wider and so it doesn't carve as deeply into your skate. Big number for that wide arc, less sharp skate. Still sharp, just less sharp. A smaller number, that's that stone is a little bit tighter. It's a rounder stone.

It's a it's a tighter circle and so it's gonna carve a tighter groove into your skates and make them sharper. Small number, sharp skates. Now Woody, it's a good time to work on your fractions and I know you were a math student in university, you should be able to do this. Not everybody can. Do you know I actually read once that a significant portion of the population would not order a certain chain's burgers when they went up to a third of a pound because they thought they were smaller than a quarter of a pound.

So you need to work on your fractions. Yep.

Need to have a conversation with the education Yes, we do. Levels in our country.

Okay. So if you're still with me and you're wondering what to do, start at a half inch. It's a really great place to start. And then we can work on a couple of things that might affect how you want to change the sharpening for your skate. Not that long ago, a lot of people wanted their skates sharper, maybe three eights.

I think you do three eights, don't you Woody?

Yes. Because there's a lot of extra body that I have to push around from the knees.

Some would actually suggest you should go less sharp as a result, but that's okay. A smaller number, say three eights is a smaller number than four eights, which is half an inch. Because it's smaller, it's sharper. Three eights is a little bit sharper. That comes a little bit more from the old push hard, stop hard days.

Now, some goalies would like them to be a little bit less sharp so they can still rip around the crease, but they have less strain on the hips and the knees. So they go from three from half an inch to maybe something a little bit less sharp. I, I actually had a spy who was at the Canucks development camp this week. Woody, wasn't Woody. My son Matthew was, one of the invited goalies there.

Wasn't drafted but was, given an invite to the Canucks camp. And, I got him to ask me, ask Ty Young and Aku what they did for their sharpening. And so here's another example. Ty Young actually sharpens at five eighths. So that's an even bigger number than four eighths, bigger than a half inch.

It's a little bit less sharp. Easier on the hips, easier on the knees. He's You probably have to be a better skater to rock something that's a little bit less sharp, but that lets him get around the crease a little bit better. I can tell you bit more about Ty's sharpening as we go on, down the road. What do you had an example of somebody else who also goes even less sharp than that?

An even bigger number.

Yeah. But only when the ice is super soft.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're allowed to tell us who that is?

Actually, I no. But it's over an inch. Okay. Some of the ice conditions are so bad in the NHL and so soft that I had a goalie tell me he goes over an inch and I didn't even know such a profile.

I did not either. Yeah. So there you go. So you bring up the climate. There's a couple of reasons that we might change that number for ourselves personally.

We might dial it sharper. We might dial it duller based just on personal preference, but then a couple of things can affect that. If you're an older kid, if you've got an older child, they're obviously gonna be a little bit heavier as they've grown. They have the weight to bite into the ice a little bit more. So they tend to go a little bit less sharp.

So they might not like half inch, they might like something even less sharp. A Ty Young, for example, or the NHL goaltender that Kevin is referring to goes a little bit less sharp. They're a little bit heavier, they dig in a little bit better. A younger child, now we're talking eight year olds, nine year olds, 10 year olds, whatever, a little bit less heavy on their blades because they're smaller kids, they might need to go a little bit sharper. I know when my kid was quite young, he was at three eights all the time.

He's now gone to half an inch since then. So your size can affect it. How you like to feel the bite in the ice can affect it. And then climate was the other thing that you brought up, Woody. Some rinks, whether you're an NHL rink under the TV lights or you're in a hotter climate like Florida, Texas, wherever, you're already gonna get more bite because that ice is not as firm.

So you go a little bit less sharp on the blades. I remember Carey Price told us, Woody, that the Canadiens' trainer had dialed his edges in for every different building in the league depending on the ice conditions. Not suggesting he had 32 different sharpenings, but he was aware of what he'd be facing depending on where they were playing and sharpen the skates accordingly. And I mentioned before, I'd come back with a little bit more on Ty Young's skate sharpening in the warmer weather. Remember, he goes five eighths, a little bit less sharp than a half inch or four eighths for regular rinks, but sometimes he said that in hotter rinks, actually goes all the way up to three quarters.

Three quarters being the same as six eighths. So a lot of people four eights, tie in regular buildings five eights, tie in hot buildings six eights because you get more bite into the ice so they don't need to be as sharp. All that to say you might need to experiment the next time you're at the shop and you'll have to think a little bit about what you're asking for, and it'll give you the understanding so that you can have a discussion with your kid as well about what you're seeing. But two edges, big number, less sharp, small number, more sharp. There's your guidelines and a couple of things that can affect them.

This is all about edges, but the curvature front to back of your blades is a whole another matter. Goalie skates are not flat. They were a fair bit flatter when I was younger, but they're not super flat anymore. That is known as the profile. I will not dig into the profile here today.

Maybe we will in the future, but we will link in the show notes a great gear segment that Woody and Cam did all about profiling your skates. Another thing that you can look at, but there's a beginning. Back to our homework. Our feet are a little bit wider than shoulder width usually as goalies, so we live mostly on our inside edges. And we don't stop even with two feet very often as goalies.

Henrik Lundqvist, I think Woody used to sharpen his inside edge high because he knew he spent most of his time on the inside edges. Uh-oh. Know a

lot of skate sharpener people that don't want us to talk about

inside edge

because they hate doing it.

They hate it. It's not easy. But so so for all our friends sharpening skates, here's why you want an outside edge as well, Woody. Can you think of why you need an outside edge as a goalie?

When you're going behind the net to play the puck and you're kind of carving yourself around that post on that inside leg, you probably get onto your outside edge there.

100%. Well done, Woody. You get the bonus gold star today. If you want to be a good puck handler, you've got to be good on your feet. And if you're trying to get that hard rim, yep.

Outside edge is going be a big part for one of those legs to get get back there. So learn your edges. Okay. That is the

Which would explain why Henrik inside edge high

Didn't handle

and stop as many pucks as some of his peers.

There you go. So, skate sharpeners listening who are upset with us right now, just give that bit of advice to all the goalies asking for inside edge high. If you have any more questions about skate sharpening, if I completely befuddled you with my clear as mud explanation, hit me up parents@inGoalMag.com.

Now the question is, how are you gonna continue the rest of the show without me? Because I'm about to curl up into the fetal position because I was told there would be no math. I am a former math major, although I have yet to I'm trying to forget that part of my life. So all these fractions have me shaking.

You know what's confusing is we've got half inch, we've got eighths of an inch, we've got sixteenths of an inch, and then bunch of us just live in the world of centimeters and millimeters. It it can get a little confusing. So if you're not sure

Yeah. Well, and on three mil and four mil blades Yeah.

For sure.

For sure. Sharpenings react.

And that will be different and I didn't get into that either. I said it was just a quick primer. But if if you do want a little tip on the fractions, just convert them to sixteenths and then it's easy to compare. So eight sixteenths is a half inch. And then when somebody three eighths is six sixteenths and then it's a little easier to compare the numbers.

And and added bonus, you won't be scared of ordering a hamburger because it won't be as much as you

A third of a pound is bigger than a fourth of a pound, but we're not converting those two fractions. Okay.

So I'd one more piece of advice.

Okay. Go for it.

This is simplification. Once you get and figure out what your ideal sharpening is and assuming you're not changing rakes like NHL guys where they need to change it depending on the softness of the ice, which is for sure something that happens, Jot it down. I had it on the

I had it on

bottom of of my skate plate or on the cowling.

When we had cowlings.

In that way, in that moment, whether your parents are taking your skates in or you're taking them in and you're not sure, somebody can't remember, it's right there on the cowling. Easy for the sharpener to get and easy for them to dial it in properly for you.

I love that tip actually, Woody, because quite often at tournaments, mom and dad might not be there. They might have sent little Johnny or little Sally along with another set of parents. And now the skates need to be sharpened. That's a that's a great tip. Thank you.

Okay. Yeah. Just on the holder.

Just on the holder.